


Deadlift

by mylordshesacactus



Category: RWBY
Genre: 5+1, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Slice of Life, Space Politics, references to Fantastic Racism, working title: Yeet The Sheep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21938425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mylordshesacactus/pseuds/mylordshesacactus
Summary: or, Cheerfully Manhandling Fiona Thyme For Recreation And Profit. It's all in good fun--until it's not.
Relationships: Robyn Hill/Fiona Thyme
Comments: 47
Kudos: 195





	Deadlift

**Author's Note:**

> [slides this under the tree]
> 
> Does the timeline work for New Year's Eve? Yes because I say so. This just in, Remnant celebrates lunar new year which falls whenever the hell I say it does.
> 
> As always many thanks to Alex for her SHAMELESS ENABLING and emotional support and also finding my typos.

They had a good thing going for them, this season.

Technically, there was no need for them to stay on the move like they were criminals. Technically, they had yet to break the law. In a way anyone could prove. Technically.

 _Realistically,_ they were making enemies. And the kind of enemies they made were not the sort of people Robyn was willing to take on faith wouldn’t try following them home.

Still, unless something went very wrong they should be able to stay in this one for at least a few more months. It wasn’t a _nice_ townhouse, and it certainly wasn’t massive—but it was comfortable for four people, and it wasn’t falling apart at the seams, either. Two bedrooms, a bath and a half, a cellar they’d hidden under some rugs as a last-resort bolthole, and a sunny storage room on the ground floor that May lovingly referred to as Robyn’s office.

Well—it was sunny for the few hours a day when the sun was able to lance sideways around the hovering bulk of Atlas over their heads. That was still leagues better than most buildings in Mantle could claim.

And—yes, Robyn _was_ rather partial to it. They kept spare supplies in the open for security reasons; it was always best to have essentials close on hand immediately, or able to be grabbed in passing if they had to run for it. But nonessentials generally got shunted into the back room, providing a mostly-empty space that still had oddly-positioned surfaces for spreading charts over.

Which was where she was at the moment, the Atlas huntsman’s board projected from her scroll, poring over maps of Mantle’s street and sewer systems. Grimm activity was carefully marked in red pen; crimes serious enough to ping the Huntsman radar or any of the alerts she had on various news sites were marked with an orange highlighter; any activity by other Huntsmen or Huntresses was sketched out in blue.

Patrols made by the four of them, or by the remnants of the White Fang, were written down nowhere but in her head. Anything could be compromised.

A quick rap on the doorframe jolted her out of her concentration. It was all the warning May gave before sticking her head through the door.

“Have we got a stepladder in here?”

“Afraid not.” Robyn stuck the red pen between her teeth and picked up a fat golden marker. There was a music festival next week; she circled the square that would serve as its epicenter, allowing a generous margin of error, numbered it, and wrote the date and corresponding number in the corner of the map. Large gatherings were always worth keeping an eye on. This done, she spat out the pen. “We don’t have a police scanner, either, and we need one.”

“Damn.” May looked more amused than anything. “You should probably get out here then. We’re trying to change a lightbulb.”

Oh, _that_ sounded promising.

Yes, she thought with a sigh as she followed May into the living room. This was about what she’d expected.

Apparently, the light in the stairway had blown out the night before. They’d suspected when they moved in that it would be a bitch to try to change, but had foolishly hoped that their four to five months of residence would leave the light intact to become someone else’s problem.

It had now become Joanna’s problem.

“You almost had it that time!” called Fiona. “Try again.”

Joanna rubbed her hands together, glaring at the recessed ceiling bulb. “I got this.”

She jumped, fingers brushing the glass, then fell back onto the steps and nearly lost her balance.

“Got it!” she crowed. “I twitched it! Give me a few dozen more of those and we’ll get it out.”

“Please don’t,” said Robyn.

“You’re no fun,” Joanna retorted, taking another leap. She missed completely, stumbled down three steps on landing, and nearly yanked the handrail out of the wall catching herself.

“You’re going to break your ankle! Stop it,” Robyn told her.

“You’re going to break your _neck,”_ said May.

Robyn couldn’t help but smile at Joanna’s exaggerated pout. “Leave it for now, Joanna. We’ll buy a ladder when we get a chance.”

“Fine.” Joanna tilted her head. “Let me try one last thing. If I stand on the handrail—”

“No.”

Giggling slightly but trying to hide it, Fiona hopped down the stairs and patted her arm. Joanna looked at her, grinned, and handed her the new lightbulb.

Fiona rolled her eyes. “Ha, ha. Very funny. You noticed that I’m sho—”

She gave a strangled yelp as Joanna grabbed her by the waist and plucked her into the air with no apparent effort, settling Fiona on her shoulders and gripping her shins carefully to keep her secure.

_“Hey!”_

“Can you reach?” laughed Joanna.

Fiona smacked the crown of Joanna’s head with her free hand, laughing so hard she was barely able to aim the blow. “Screw you!”

“No, no, just the lightbulb.”

“Business before pleasure, Fiona,” Robyn grinned. _“Can_ you reach?”

“You’re sleeping on the couch tonight, _yes,_ I can reach it!”

* * *

The spotlight swept lazily toward them.

The shipping containers blazed with color, going from black hulks on a blacker field to almost violently red and blue and white, the elegant snowflake of the Schnee Dust Company glowing in the night.

All four of them held their breaths, weapons pulled around close to their chests so as not to risk a glinting edge peeking around the corner. 

The beam from the guardhouse cast too-sharp shadows off the corners of the metal crates. If you were paranoid, you could easily imagine that it slowed as it ran along the edges of their shelter…

And then it was gone.

“Thirty-five seconds,” Robyn breathed. They ducked out from behind the crates and ran flat-out toward the warehouses.

The doors were heavily locked, sealed, and alarmed; the windows were worse. It had taken them weeks to scope out the security cameras and find the safest route to the central office.

Between the patrols, the watchtower, and the shifting security cameras, there was only one real hole that opened, for a few minutes, every three hours.

Jacques Schnee was a little bit ridiculous. In fairness, there was a _lot_ of Dust on this property.

But they weren’t here for the Dust.

Joanna went first, kicking off a drainpipe and leaping to grip a second-story window ledge. Her fingers would show on the surveillance footage—that much couldn’t be helped. She swung, stretched out another absurdly long arm, and dropped her grip on the windowsill to, just barely, snatch at another drainpipe. Grip secured, she scrambled onto the warehouse roof and lay flat, holding her quarterstaff out over the drop.

“May,” Robyn ordered.

May repeated the move. None of them had the reach to copy Joanna’s final mad clamber, however; she swung out from the window ledge and gripped Joanna’s weapon, letting her teammate haul her the rest of the way.

Fiona waited for a silent nod before dashing after them, while Robyn anxiously counted down seconds in her head. There were limits to how many acrobatics May could do while still keeping her Semblance activated; and while her range and endurance were good and getting better, it was better not to test that here, now, in the middle of the main SDC distribution center, at three in the morning, holding crossbows. They were going to sneak the old-fashioned way, for the most part.

The spotlight was sweeping back toward them.

Fiona was small, but she was fast. She climbed the first drainpipe like a fluffy lizard—and missed the jump.

Her landing was heavy but not hard; Robyn saw rather than heard her swear, and the quick glance Fiona shot her was equal parts panicked, apologetic, and humiliated.

Neither of them wasted time with wounded feelings. Fiona was back on her feet in an instant, and up the drainpipe again. She kicked off harder this time. Her fingers brushed the extreme edge of the windowsill, and there was no time to try and fail again.

 _“Go,”_ Fiona hissed. “You go, I’ll run.”

Robyn didn’t bother dignifying that with an answer. Cupping her hands, she glanced up and positioned herself directly below Joanna’s dangling staff. A quick thumbs-up from the roof confirmed the plan, as Joanna managed to stretch the handhold a few inches further.

Fiona looked like she was considering hesitation; but she didn’t pause. Backing up a few steps for a running start, she rushed forward, planted a foot solidly in Robyn’s interlaced fingers, and didn’t resist. Robyn stood in time with Fiona’s momentum and flung her overhead; this time she managed to grab the ledge solidly, and unhooked her staff to interlink the unstrung crossbow head with Joanna’s. Together, they pulled her over and onto the roof.

Robyn was already moving, the spotlight starting to lick along the edge of the warehouse now. She shimmied sideways along the windowsill, grasped Joanna’s staff when it was lowered within her reach, and was dragged up the wall to pull herself over the edge just as the spotlight flared, blinding them all and throwing their shadows long and damning across the white roof.

All four of them froze—but there were no shouts, no alarms, and after a few moments the searing white light had passed, leaving nothing but pounding hearts and dancing afterimages in its wake.

Afterimages that seemed to be taking longer than usual to fade. Robyn smiled, blinking to try to clear the last of them as she recognized the midnight-purple distortion in the air around them.

She clapped May on the shoulder, and the cloak faded as May lowered her hands. “Good timing.”

“I’m sorry,” Fiona whispered, pale, ears flicking with abject fury aimed inward. “I thought I could make it.”

Robyn gripped her shoulder. “You made it just fine. I should have gone that route from the beginning. Come on.” She jerked her head toward the air processing unit they’d identified as their best way into the building. “We’ve got a little over two hours to bypass internal security and get the _real_ expense reports for this place.”

* * *

Fireworks exploded over Mantle, red and white and whistling, spark-trailing gold. Out on the street, there were scattered cheers and applause. 

“Little premature, don’t you think?” May commented. “It’s barely 8:30.”

Joanna waved her off. “Ah, let ‘em have fun. It was a shitty year, I’m glad it’s almost dead.”

“Robyn!” Fiona bounced over, hopping up on the arm of Robyn’s chair and comically overbalancing. Robyn wisely marked her page and set her book aside before anything happened to it. “We’re still patrolling tonight, right?”

May laughed at her word choice. “I love it. Let’s use that excuse for all our bar crawls.”

“Why stop there? Officer, we’re not _trespassing,”_ Joanna said with a grin. “We’re registered Huntresses on _patrol._ ”

“It’s not a bar crawl, May,” Robyn said patiently. “It’s a series of public appearances.”

“In bars,” Joanna clarified.

“She’s _campaigning,_ ” Fiona protested, biting her lip to contain her excitement. It didn’t work very well. “People need to see you and talk to you. Jacques Schnee wouldn’t be caught _dead_ in a Mantle sports bar on New Year’s Eve!”

“He would if I caught him,” muttered May.

“It’ll be an _amazing_ contrast,” Fiona exclaimed. “And it’s the new year. It’s a perfect chance to talk about change, and get people talking about what their hopes are moving forward!”

Robyn smiled up at her. “We’re making the rounds, Fiona,” she promised. “I was planning to leave in about half an hour. I promised Dr. Polendina we’d stop by before midnight, as well.”

Some of Fiona’s glittering enthusiasm dimmed, but she was impossible to keep down for long. Robyn...understood. Pietro Polendina was revered and deserved it; his practice was frequently the only option for those who couldn’t normally afford functional prosthetics, and was always the best option for those who could. And Penny was—earnest. Earnest and sincere and Mantle’s last line of defense, these days. She was a sweet girl.

Nothing more or less, whatever Robyn’s uneasiness about her might be; if there was one thing she knew in her bones it was the dangers of treating people as less than human. _That_ wasn’t what made her wary. It was only that Penny was too earnest. She...believed too deeply. Trusted too completely in things...in people...who didn’t deserve it.

But she was also young and kindhearted and achingly compassionate and, for all her loving family, more alone in the world than any other living creature. And her father was an invaluable political ally who hated Schnee, anyway.

Besides. Too much had...happened, this year. Entirely too much. She wanted to start the next one more gently. Dr. Polendina had promised her his little gathering would be quiet and private, no AceOps, no potential allies, no chance of photographers or unfriendly eyes. 

There was enough anti-Faunus sentiment rampant in Mantle to make certain New Year’s traditions...unwise in public.

“Give that back!”

A laughing Joanna lunged across the room. Fiona ducked under her arm and danced away, giggling madly.

“What, this?” The picture of innocence, she tossed Joanna’s wallet between her hands. “Come and get it.”

Robyn considered intervening. She considered this for several moments, then put her feet back up and picked up her book.

What? She had a little under an hour with no pressing responsibilities, and _The Thief And The Butcher_ was a classic for a reason.

Joanna chased Fiona around the living room for nearly five minutes before managing to pin her in a corner. At which point Fiona jammed the wallet between her teeth and dropped to the floor, crawling between Joanna’s legs and sprinting into the next room.

Or at least, she tried to. May leaned out casually as Fiona passed, hooking an arm around her waist and hoisting her off the ground like an angry cat. With moments to spare, Fiona spat the wallet back out into her hand, where it instantly vanished.

“Oh, come on,” Joanna protested. “Cheater!”

“Sore loser,” retorted Fiona.

May smirked, adjusting her grip to toss the squirming Fiona roughly over her shoulders in a fireman’s carry for better control.

_“Put me down!”_

“If we dangle her upside down…” May suggested.

Robyn cleared her throat.

Having the grace to look a bit embarrassed, Joanna leaned over and caught Fiona’s eye. “If you want to tap out, say uncle.”

“You wish!”

Joanna laughed; May, grinning, jumped to give Fiona an experimental jolt that failed to dislodge anything.

“Try again,” Joanna suggested. “She’s probably got some loose change in there.”

“I’m not a couch cushion!” Fiona was nearly laughing too hard to get the words out. “You’re all assholes! _Robyn!”_

Robyn pointedly refused to look up.

“All right.” Joanna cracked her knuckles. “We do this the hard way.”

May obligingly dumped Fiona backwards off her shoulders, letting her flop onto the beaten-up sofa. Before she could recover, Joanna had already fallen on her like a hungry Nevermore, digging her fingers into Fiona’s sides.

“Hey! Hey no fair! _Tickling’s no_ —Robyn! _Help me!”_

As her team dissolved into a tangle of helpless laughter and flailing limbs, Robyn glanced up. Smirking, she licked her fingers, delicately turned the page, and settled more comfortably into her chair.

* * *

Fiona hit the ground before she had time to realize she was falling.

Her first instinct was to roll onto her back and reach for her staff; she was lucky that _was_ her first instinct, because her second was to get her feet back under her. When she tried, she found they wouldn’t respond; and in the delay while her legs dragged uselessly on the ground and she paused long enough to recognize a high-end electronic bolo around her shins, a second bolo whipped out of the darkness and bound her arms tight against her chest.

Shouts of fear and surprise rang out around her, followed by the sound of a handful of falling bodies. Reflexively, Fiona tried to wriggle around and bring at least one crossbow to bear on whoever her attacker was; then crisp white uniforms started dropping to street level, and she groaned out loud.

AceOps. Because her night just couldn’t possibly get better.

“All right, everyone. Stay calm.” Fiona’s ears pinned back at the voice. Clover Ebi, a spring in his step and a cocky smile on his face, strode onto the scene. 

Most of the lingering bystanders, the ones who’d slowed or stopped as their comrades fell, wisely took the chance to scatter down sidestreets while conspicuously not quite running. One young man turned and bolted up the road; a jaunty flick of that stupid fishing-rod grappler hooked around his waist and jerked him back, where Zeki and Bree quickly had him cuffed alongside the rest of them.

Fiona’s Aura had flared as she fell, rising up to heal the skin taken off her palms and the side of her face. As it faded, she jerked to bang the steel blades of her bowstaff against the street.

“You’re arresting _protesters_ now, Ebi?” she spat.

He paused, a resigned look flickering over his face before he threw up that blandly charming mask.

“It’s Fiona, right?”

“To my _friends._ This is illegal, let them go!”

“Easy.” He held up his hands, still with that stupid smile. “No one else is gonna get hurt tonight. And we’re not here to arrest protesters. We’re _here_ to contain armed agitators fleeing the scene of a riot. Incidentally...I’m going to have to ask you to hand over your weapon, Miss Thyme.”

Fiona weighed her options. Elm Ederne was already reaching down to untangle her staff from the second bolo; given a split-second decision, she clenched her fingers around it and sent a pulse of golden light down the weapon’s length. It dissolved into sand under the AceOp’s fingers, and Fiona let her Semblance fade.

Keeping her face completely empty of emotion, she asked, “What weapon?”

Ebi’s jaw hardened. For the moment, he glanced around. “The others?”

“Clean,” called Harriet Bree. “Except for this one. Flare gun.”

“I live near the wall!” the man protested. “There are Grimm!”

“Flare guns are legal in Mantle,” Fiona snapped.

Clover was unconcerned. “I know. If your residence is zoned for that kind of defense weapon, there’ll be no problem. It’ll all be sorted out in a few hours, and the transport will return you to the landing pad nearest your home address. Everyone else, thank you for your cooperation, and we apologize for the inconvenience. I suggest you all go home.”

Fiona glared at him. “Let me up whenever you feel like it.”

Clover sighed. “I can’t do that. Bringing _weapons_ to a worker’s rights protest? Robyn’s smarter than that. You need to be too.”

Fiona forced herself to take a steadying breath.

“I’m a licensed Huntress,” she said, the forced courtesy choking her. “I’m registered with the Kingdom of Atlas. I have the legal right to weapons in public gatherings. And it wasn’t _us_ who turned that protest violent.”

Holding up his hands, Clover gave another arrogantly handsome smile. “I know. Never is, right? The system started the cycle of violence? Someone threw a brick.”

“So the security drones opened fire? Get _fucked!_ And let me up!”

Clover walked up to her, dropping into a condescending half-squat that he seemed to think was a gesture of camaraderie. She resisted the urge to spit in his face.

“Listen,” he said. “You know I have to bring you in, right?” He reached down to Fiona’s lapel, twitching the rising-falcon badge so that it glinted in the streetlights. “You’re a known subversive element, running from a peaceful protest that turned into a riot, and you were armed. You can explain everything when _we’ve_ contained the situation down here.”

 _“Known subversive—”_ Fiona instantly regretted not biting him. “You _know_ who I work for!”

“Oh,” muttered Harriet off to the side. “Is that what we’re calling it these days?”

Fiona, who’d heard much worse, ignored her. “Robyn’s a Council candidate, how is that _subversive?_ She wants to _protect_ Mantle! And she’s going to do it. We still have a democracy, Ironwood can’t just do whatever he wants!”

Clover raised an eyebrow. “If _you_ want to help Robyn win this election, you should _probably_ stop doing things like bringing deadly weapons to volatile protests and getting yourself arrested. It doesn’t look good for her legitimacy. Well done on the speed of that defensive draw, though. Normally, we perform takedowns with a strike to the torso area specifically to avoid that kind of risk. But no one can aim perfectly every time. We’ll practice, Marrow.”

Marrow Amin’s tail curled between his legs in Fiona’s peripheral vision. Her glare intensified. _That_ was unprofessional in any context; it had _not_ escaped her notice that there was only one faunus in the AceOps.

Clover stood. “When you’ve been released, give Robyn my compliments; she trains her people well. Maybe a little _too_ well, for someone who _supposedly_ makes her living fighting only the Grimm.”

“Not quite sure what that’s supposed to mean, Clover,” Robyn answered smoothly.

Fiona couldn’t hide the relief that washed along her entire body. Clover, on the other hand, barely even reacted.

“Robyn!” He spread his arms in welcome. “Isn’t that convenient. Almost like you knew where to find us.”

“Almost like you jumped a member of my team in a back alley,” she agreed. “What do you want?”

“Whatever you may think, Robyn—this isn’t personal. This is about everyone’s safety. I’m only doing my job.”

Fiona couldn’t see Robyn’s face, but she didn’t have to—the joyless smile was audible. “Right. Thank goodness nothing bad has ever happened when the people in power were _just doing their jobs.”_

“The more time I waste here,” Clover pointed out, “the more time I’m spending arguing with a fellow Huntress instead of out there, keeping Mantle safe.”

“Couldn’t agree more.” The nearly-inaudible sound of metal wings unfolding nevertheless rang off the walls. “I think you should go do your job. _Now.”_

The AceOps didn’t tense—they were too good for that. But all across the line, centers of gravity shifted. Fiona was not particularly happy to be hog-tied and squirming on the ground between the two groups. 

“Robyn.” He always managed to sound so infuriatingly _reasonable_ that if you listened, for a moment you could almost forget the horrific abuses of power he routinely committed. “You’re running for Councilwoman. We both know how important that is for Mantle. There is a surveillance camera pointed directly at us right now. This is _not_ what you want to burn your campaign over.”

Robyn didn’t respond; however, after barely half a second there was a sound of shattering glass.

“Wow,” said May, dripping sarcastic cheer. “It is _so_ inconvenient that Mantle surveillance cameras only upload recordings to the main server every fifteen minutes exactly on the quarter hour! That bolt will have completely destroyed the memory chip, too.” The bowstaff swung up into the edge of Fiona’s vision, pointed between Ederne’s eyes. “I have _got_ to be more careful with the safety on this thing.”

“Clover,” Robyn said quietly before anything else could escalate. “This is a political power move and you know it. No one benefits from this going any further. Walk away.”

“You know I can’t do that.” There was hard anger in his voice now, and Fiona tugged at the cords around her chest to no avail, trying not to draw any more attention. “This isn’t a game anymore. You’re threatening an Atlas military representative. The only reason I’m giving _you_ one more chance to walk away is that I respect your _care_ for her.”

“If you think I’m just going to let you drag her off like this—”

“I _think_ you can survive without her for a few hours. If you have an objection to her arrest, you can register it through the proper legal channels. I’ll give you my personal word, as a Huntsman, that I’ll make sure she’s treated fairly. I _also_ think we’ve got you five to three and that I can have a squad of Atlas soldiers here in thirty seconds.”

“Robyn,” Fiona said urgently. “I’m fine. It’s fine. Don’t do anything stupid!” _Not for me, not like this, it’s too important…_

“There. See?” Clover lowered his hands, palms out, an appeasing gesture. One that conveniently brought him within a hair’s breadth of the hilt of his weapon. “She’s smart. _You should listen to her.”_

A long pause.

“Fine,” said Robyn. Fiona tried to control the way her ears wilted. It was what she’d said to do, but—even with the dubious protection of being tied to a Council campaign, Atlas processing was _humiliating_ . And Clover Ebi’s additional ‘protection’ only made it worse. It was bad enough to be the _cause_ of this, taken down in seconds and negotiated over like a helpless hostage; she didn’t want to deal with Atlas police and the endless ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing’ jokes tonight too. 

She was shocked when she felt the curled edge of a bowstaff hook into her bonds and jerk her backward. She’d felt, rather than heard, the rest of the team slowly edging closer; she hadn’t realized how close they’d gotten while Robyn and Clover talked. There was no sign of the man Clover had snagged earlier; she wished him well.

“Release her into my custody, then.” Robyn’s tone brooked no argument. “And I’ll give you _my_ word as a Huntress to send her home until tomorrow.”

Fiona had been dragged back against Joanna’s legs. Unable to stand with her ankles tied together, she didn’t protest when she was scooped up like a kickball and tucked under her teammate’s arm. Joanna’s grasp was firm, but warm and careful; she gave a reassuring squeeze before focusing back on the AceOps, and Fiona felt some of her ashamed fear dissipate.

The AceOps’ weapons came up. Joanna’s free hand raised in response as she took a step back; Robyn, out in front and terribly exposed, hadn’t raised her arm to firing position yet.

For a long, long moment, she and Clover just _looked_ at each other.

“Officially,” he said, words slow and careful, “I’m not supposed to do that. But I think the General will understand. _If_ you _all_ stay out of our way tonight. This situation is volatile enough without a Council candidate fighting in the streets.”

“Or getting shot by General Ironwood’s secret police?” Robyn suggested pleasantly. Joanna took another step back, matching May; and now Robyn started to move back as well, sidling toward the shadows.

“This can’t happen again, Robyn,” Clover warned her.

Robyn gave a mirthless laugh and replied, “Took the words right out of my mouth,” but by then Joanna had already turned to run with a tightly-trussed Fiona slung over her shoulder.

* * *

“You know,” said May. “I think my favorite thing about working with you people is our _mature, professional focus.”_

In the center of the room, Robyn and Joanna cheerfully ignored her.

This month’s hideout was...well, shittier than usual, to put it bluntly. The heating unit was outdated and liked to throw sparks, the floors creaked, the windows were sealed tight—anything else would have condemned the building—but filth was ground so deep into the glass as to make them nearly opaque. A security feature, Robyn called it with unforced cheer.

Which—she was right, no one could deny that.

For all that the place they’d generously termed an apartment was mostly being held together by the industrious efforts of the rats in the walls, it had been good to them. It was nearly midwinter; temperatures plunged so low at night that it got dangerous even with the heating grid running at full capacity, which put their usual nighttime adventures on standby. 

Well, May thought drily. Half of them put nighttime activities on standby. For _some_ reason Robyn and Fiona still managed to look tired in the mornings. Funny how that worked.

They ran patrols up until sunset; there was always someone, somewhere, trapped on the streets as the temperature ticked toward zero despite Maintenance’s best attempts to hold it steady. They had connections, favors to call in; in a worst-case scenario they’d budged up and made room in the living room for anyone still stranded, though they tried not to risk anyone’s safety by placing them in the position of being able to identify their band’s location. Anyone who could provide a lead could be _forced_ to provide a lead.

Robyn left no one behind; but the dead were no use to others. By sunset, all four of them were behind sealed doors or she would know the reason why. May had really, genuinely thought that a lifetime of her mother would make her immune to _I’m not angry, I’m just upset; you had me worried._

Unfortunately, “sunset” in Solitas in the middle of winter translated to most of the day. There was a lot of downtime.

Still not sure how that translated to an impromptu pushup contest, May rolled her eyes.

“You’re going _down,_ Hill,” Joanna rasped, forehead visibly beaded with sweat.

Robyn panted, “Big words, short stuff.”

“How long have they been going?” asked May.

Fiona hummed noncommittally from across the room. May had laid claim to an armchair; Fiona, wrapped in Robyn’s bathrobe and holding a steaming mug of spiced wine, was sprawled languidly in a ratty beanbag directly between the two.

“Hmm?” she murmured vaguely. “Oh, I’m not counting.”

 _“Damn it,_ Fiona,” Robyn gasped. “We said we were going to two hundred.”

“Oops.” Fiona’s eyes sparkled as she took a long sip of her drink.

“I think your form’s dropping,” May called helpfully. Without missing a beat, her fearless leader switched briefly to one-handed pushups solely to flip her the bird. She returned to standard form just slightly too hastily not to be obvious.

“Getting tired?” Joanna’s voice was little more than a wheeze. “Just tell me if you need to stop.”

“You.” Robyn panted for several seconds. “You wish.”

“Remember when we were in the Academy?” May asked no one in particular. “I’m so glad we’ve all _matured_ and outgrown those juvenile feuds we used to get involved in. I’m so glad we have a shared, purposeful vision now and that we’re _grown adults_ who’ve learned _humility and judgement!”_

“Uh-huh,” said Fiona. Her eyes blatantly traced the line of Robyn’s straining shoulders.

May rested her chin in one hand. “And _subtlety.”_

With great dignity, Fiona set her drink aside and stood, crossing to Joanna’s side.

Despite their mutual bluster, Robyn was clearly flagging faster. Joanna was nearly impossible to beat for raw upper-body strength and endurance. Another minute was all it would take.

Unfortunately for her, Fiona had gotten a _look_ on her face. Joanna’s eyes widened a moment too late.

“Don’t you _dare—”_

With a sweetly cherubic smile, Fiona gathered Robyn’s robe up around her ankles and sat delicately on Joanna’s back.

“You okay?” she asked cheerfully.

“Nice try.” Joanna’s voice had risen nearly an octave. “You don’t even...weigh any... _oh gods_ …”

Joanna managed two more repetitions before she rose halfway on trembling arms, swore, and collapsed. Robyn managed three more for the principle of the thing, then rolled over panting for air.

 _“That doesn’t count,”_ said Joanna once they’d both caught their breath enough to manage a wheeze.

Satisfied, Fiona retreated back to her nest. She at least had the decency to look a bit sheepi— _apologetic,_ as she settled back in place. 

“If it helps,” she offered, “You both made it _way_ past two hundred.”

“I’m going to kill you,” Robyn whispered, “as soon as I can move my arms.”

* * *

Sirens mingled with the rising shouts of panic and anger, fear building to a fever pitch as the sound of raw hatred split the night air outside. Robyn wasn’t certain if the bloody tang of iron on her tongue was real or imagined.

Fiona’s eyes were open, pale hand holding deceptively tight to Robyn’s red-stained fingers; she was awake, responsive, alive. Robyn wished desperately that her world could narrow to those simple earth-shattering truths. She’d been so certain, for the worst few seconds of her life—so certain and so afraid, pinned to the ground by the need to keep a weapon trained on the only threat in the room she could see…

Unfortunately, Robyn Hill was a Huntress. She was barely able to register the wide, terrified green eyes, the whimpered reassurances. Those weren’t life or death to anything but Robyn’s own pounding heart.

She was _too_ aware of the world. Already some part of her mind coldly catalogued the sound of Grimm in the distance, deep and hoarse under the rising screams. Manticore. Multiple. Fast-moving. A child was calling for his mother. A man called a woman’s name, over and over, increasingly frantic while someone else tried in agony to get him to understand—

And too close, too loud, Jacques Schnee’s oily gloating still played from the speakers while Fiona’s blood soaked her hands.

There was a nearly audible warping in the air as Marrow Amin’s Semblance finally lost its power. Within the span of a heartbeat, Joanna had vaulted the stage and stood over them, crossbow aimed over the heads of the crowd. May was on her knees at Robyn’s side in the same moment, golden eyes wide, visibly weak with relief when Fiona’s gaze flicked to her momentarily.

“Robyn,” she said in an undertone, glancing from Fiona to the horror show engulfing the audience. “We’re the epicenter. We have to get these people out.”

Robyn closed her eyes.

“Take over,” she ordered. She waited only long enough for May to set her weapon aside and put pressure on Fiona’s injury before standing.

The shouting of the crowd had reached a fever pitch. Robyn had a fraction of a second to ache with fierce pride in them; they were scared, they were panicking, but despite what Anima blockbusters would have them all believe, frightened people were not insensate mobs. Most stood back against the wall, with small knots surrounding a few of the wounded—those, Robyn realized with sickened certainty, who were still alive.

_“...each and every citizen of Mantle and Atlas…”_

“Turn that off,” she snapped. With perhaps more prejudice than the poor thing really deserved, Joanna drove the blade of her staff through the projector’s core. Jacques Schnee’s insincere promises died in a burst of sparks. 

Robyn gave a shrill, sharp battlefield whistle.

“Everyone!” she called over the suddenly quiet crowd. “We can’t stay here. We use the buddy system. Find someone, stay with them, and get ready to move.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Joanna subtly slip her scroll from her pocket and ping the Mantle emergency grid, just in case.

“Robyn!” someone called in the crowd. “The wounded!”

Robyn glanced at Joanna, who shook her head with a bleak expression. Too much Grimm activity; the ambulance delay would take too long.

“We’re going to have to move them. Emergency services can meet us at the nearest Grimm shelter. Here.” She shrugged off her coat, throwing it to the nearest group. “We don’t have stretchers, but we’ll do the best we can. It’s safer to move them than to stay. Joanna,” she added in an undertone. “Watch the doors.”

Safer to keep moving than to stop and think, safer to get everyone out of this room, away from the stench of blood and slashed intestines, the horrified sobbing of survivors clinging to the too-still bodies of loved ones. Worse, those who were completely silent.

Given something to focus on, the crowd started swarming. Distraught survivors were guided gently from corpses, or pulled away by force if it came to it. What mattered most now was keeping despair at bay. Something to do, _anything_ …

Oh, there were _several_ things Robyn intended to do. Her first duty, always, was to the people of Mantle—in a way, that had just gotten a lot easier.

May had managed to help Fiona get her light jacket off, creating a more efficient pressure pad against the wound. Robyn was relieved, as she joined them again, to see flickering golden light trying to flare under Fiona’s skin. Her Aura was recovering already. The wound was deep and wide; but she was so short that what could easily have been the same disemboweling kill-strike that had taken out so many innocents had glanced off her ribs.

“I’ll carry her,” May offered. “They need you to lead.”

Robyn shook her head. Working quickly, she unbuckled her gauntlet and pressed Fiona’s right arm tight against the wound, praying the pressure would be enough. She slipped her wrist crossbow onto Fiona’s left arm, checking that the trigger mechanism lined up with a smaller hand and reloading it for her.

“If you gave me your staff there’d only be two of us in fighting shape,” she said shortly. “Two and a half is better. Fiona?”

“I can walk,” Fiona protested. “I haven’t lost that much…”

She turned white as she tried to pull herself upright, and Robyn put a hand behind her head to keep it from falling back to the stage.

She _hadn’t_ lost that much blood, mostly because she was smart enough to lie still while trying to heal a chest wound. But she wasn’t immune to shock, either. It was no wonder Fiona had passed out; a single-blow Aura break, when she’d been in perfect fighting condition a second before, was not something a body could bounce back from without rest. And the blood loss wasn’t exactly negligible.

Joanna had gotten their evacuees organized. There were more living wounded than Robyn had dared hope, though what she saw of their injuries made it clear that many would not survive to be transferred to an ambulance, let alone after.

But there was hope still. If nothing else, in the way complete strangers coordinated to move their wounded as safely as possible. It wouldn’t be enough; already Joanna was busy at the door, and if they didn’t move soon they’d be fish in a barrel. But it was something. It was _everything_ she was fighting for.

Fiona hissed as Robyn slid an arm under her shoulders, and Robyn silently corrected herself.

 _Almost_ everything. At the moment—

At the moment, Robyn was a Huntress. She knew what her priorities were, what they _must_ be. But some small, desperate part of her would have let the world burn so long as Fiona’s pained, shallow breath against her neck didn’t stop.

“I know,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m okay,” Fiona whispered, a wild-eyed ritual. “I’m okay, I— _ow—”_

It was jostling her, Robyn knew that, and stretching the wound; but there was nothing to do. Fiona kept pressure on her side with her right arm, left resting across her stomach to aim out; and Fiona was kind of a terrible shot, actually, her weapon of choice had always been a polearm. But it was better than nothing.

As carefully as they could afford with every second a potential death sentence, Robyn managed to get to her feet. Joanna was holding the front doors; May, without being asked, had started waving the survivors out the back—the exit even with the stage, so that Robyn wouldn’t have to navigate climbing down.

The crowd was still shell-shocked and terrified, hesitating to follow May’s lead; they kept glancing around at Robyn, waiting for her lead, looking for direction.

Robyn lifted her head, eyes blazing.

“Pair up,” she repeated. It was an order, hard and clear; but she made eye contact with as many as she could, made her voice as warm as she could manage when hard, icy fury was beginning to build in her chest like a January blizzard. “This is Mantle. We look out for one another. That hasn’t changed.” She glanced to May and Joanna. “Don’t worry about the Grimm; that’s our job. Focus on the people next to you, keep the wounded near the center, and _stay together!_ ”

There would be time in the morning, if any of them were still alive, to make Ironwood pay for this. Nothing made sense, nothing matched up, but people were dead. Her people. And it shouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, it shouldn’t be any more important than the unmoving bodies they’d left behind—but Fiona had nearly been one of them.

“Robyn?” she whispered. A pair of gryphons wheeled overhead; before Fiona could raise Robyn’s crossbow May and Joanna had taken out the first and driven the second to peel off. Their group was a homing beacon of pain and terror, and Fiona kept her voice low so that none of them could hear her. “Do you know what’s going on?”

The snuffing out of a brief glimmer of hope, the chance of equality snatched out from under them at the last moment. Hopelessness and abandonment and the choking rage of being forgotten, screaming into silence. But what else was new, in Mantle?

Something. Something was new this time. Different. This was _wrong._

Beowolves howled somewhere behind them; Robyn turned to put her back to the crowd of jogging civilians, letting Fiona act as rearguard.

“No,” she said, grim and hard. “But we’re going to find out.”


End file.
